For the Lakewood-based Mars Society, the road to the red planet passes through the Canadian Arctic, Utah’s red rock country, Icelandic lava fields, and the “Zippy” comic strip. The Mars boosters test-assembled a shiny new Iceland-bound “habitat” in Denver on Wednesday, the same day the eccentric explorers were tweaked in a Zippy strip. Mars Society President Robert Zubrin seemed equally delighted by both developments. He clutched the Rocky Mountain News comics page and giggled while, behind him, workers hoisted 12 aluminum-skinned steel panels that will form the walls of the society’s third simulated Mars base. It’s a three-floor domed cylinder that will house a crew of six in Iceland.